Local birders flocked to Oatland Island on Tuesday for a chance to appear in a new reality show being pitched to the National Geographic channel.

The show, unnamed as yet, will focus on birdwatchers, much the same as “Swamp People” follows alligator hunters and “Mud Cats” takes a look at catfish noodlers, to name two series with which supervising producer Fred Greenlee has been involved.

Greenlee told birders that to be chosen, they don’t have to have the biggest life list or be a published bird author, though at least three birdwatchers arrived with their book under wing.

“We’re looking for people who are obsessed,” said Greenlee, who noted that National Geographic had contracted for the show’s pilot. “We’re looking for larger-than-life characters.”

With that, some of the 10 or so faces in the room fell.

“I’m not enough of a character,” said Diana Churchill, whose birding column appears in the Savannah Morning News.

“You’re one of the most eccentric characters I know,” said fellow Tybee Islander and naturalist Rene Heidt, in a comment offered and accepted as encouraging, given the context.

Greenlee offered more encouragement: The chosen birders would be paid for the four or so weeks they would be filmed and they probably would get an expenses-paid trip to another stellar birdwatching locale somewhere in North America or the U.S., Alaska and Hawaii included.

After an overview, most of the birders stayed for a 10-minute on-camera test with the producer, just a conversation, really, to see how their personality came across on video.

Cathryn Dravis from Isle of Hope stayed. Self-described as “just a person who’s crawling around in the woods all the time,” Dravis is blind in one eye and identifies birds by their calls.

“They could put a patch over my blind eye, and I’ll be the pirate birder,” she said, at least partially in jest.

Tybee’s Mallory Pearce stuck around, too.

Pearce, who can list author, illustrator, college instructor and children’s puppeteer on a resume more than likely calligraphied with supplies carried in his ever-present pocket protector, figures he has the character thing down pat.

“I’m kind of a public persona,” he said.

Churchill also stayed.

She couldn’t leave the chance untaken, even though she doesn’t think she’ll be chosen.

“It’s like being in New Zealand and having the opportunity to see a kiwi,” she said. “It’s one thing to not see it because you didn’t look and another to make an effort and it’s not there.”

ON THE WEB

GO TO SAVANNAHNOW.COM TO WATCH THREE LOCAL BIRDERS WHO RESPONDED TO THE CASTING CALL FOR A NEW REALITY SHOW ABOUT BIRDWATCHING.